


The Star*

by MolollyWrites



Category: Original Work
Genre: Barcode AU, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 11:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10019180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MolollyWrites/pseuds/MolollyWrites
Summary: Sam has always kept his barcode hidden from the world, and his best friend Connor is desperate to find out why.





	

In our world, we are all born with barcodes on our wrists - to show that we are and always will be property of our government. At the moment of birth, the numbers read as a line of nine zeros, and they change as we age to show our likes, dislikes, and moods. For some of us, they also show our darkest secret, in the form of a single red star. Let me explain.

Barcodes all look pretty similar, even though everyone’s is unique to them; straight black lines marked into the skin, with nine numbers underneath. There is normally a small space before the numbers, but not on everyone. Sometimes, that little gap is filled with a small red star. To have the red star means that you are forever marked as a glitch in the system, as someone, something, that went wrong. The Marked Ones, as they’re known to be called, spend the rest of their lives hiding their barcodes, afraid of what people would say if they found out.

That’s how I’ve lived my life, too. Nobody other than my family and my doctors have ever seen my barcode, and I fully intend to keep it that way. Some people get angry when I don’t show them, some ask why. Some plead, swear never to tell anyone what my secret is, and some try to guess. I always say the same thing;

“I _won’t_ show you. It’s my barcode, and it’s my choice. I expected _you_ of all people would understand.”

That usually shuts them up.  
Usually.

One person has never really stopped asking. He dropped the subject for a little while, when I asked him to, but I know he’s curious. I know he’s just trying to show that he cares. He’s my best friend, after all, that’s what best friends do. They care about you. But I’m still afraid. I don’t want him to leave me - Connor’s pretty much the only friend I’ve got.

“Sam… Sammy,” he’ll say, so quietly that I can barely hear him, “why won’t you show me? What’s so bad that I can’t know?”

I think he’s guessed it already - no, I know he has - but I still don’t want to show him. I just can’t risk losing him. But even now, while he’s sitting beside me, I can feel his hand on my arm, as if he can somehow read my barcode through my sweatband. It’s practically his default position. I know he can’t read it - you need skin to skin contact to do that - but it’s still making me uncomfortable. I pull my hand away and cross my arms, and it’s only then that I realise there are tears in his eyes.

“What?”

“Please. Sam, please. It’s like you don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you, Connor,” I say quietly. “I just don’t like showing people.”

“But I’m not people, I’m your best friend,” he says softly, and his hand twitches like he wants to reach out for me, but he doesn’t. “You’ve seen mine, you know everything about me. I feel like you’re shutting me out, and I just want to understand why. I’ve known you for years, Sammy, but I don’t _know_ you.”

Now I’m close to tears as well. I wish he didn’t have that effect on me, but I can’t help it. He means the world to me and I don’t want to keep him out - but I just don’t see what other choice I have.

“I want to tell you. I do, I just can’t. You’d hate me.”

“Look, we both have secrets. I want to change that,” he says, and I look up.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s been awhile since you saw my code. Things have changed a bit,” he explains quietly, and I immediately think the worst. _He’s dying_ , I think. _He hates me, and he’s dying, and_ \- “Not in a bad way.”

“Then what’s changed?”

“Show me.”

I don’t know why he’s so bothered. He can get to know me without seeing it, can’t he? What’s the big deal? Sure, he knows I’ve got a secret, everyone knows it on some level, but why is he so intent on knowing it? But, I have to admit, I’m curious. Too curious. I guess that’s why he’s my best friend - we’re so alike. We’re not the type of people who let things go easily. I take a deep breath, turn to face him again, and hold out my arm.

“Just… promise me you won’t hate me?”

“I promise,” he says gently, taking my hand in his as he pushes the sweatband up my arm. I want to pull away, like I always do, but I stay as still as I can. My hand is shaking. When he sees my numbers, I hear a sharp intake of breath, and then there is a beat of silence. He says nothing, but his face says enough. I suppose I should have said this earlier; if you have the red star, it means that you have tried to end your life on at least one occasion. For me, it was a long time ago now.  

“I knew it. You hate me,” I say, my voice barely audible, and I pull my arm away. I can feel the tears coming, so I turn away from him again and cross my arms over my chest, trying to ground myself before it gets too bad. The one thing I could never deal with well is rejection, and Connor’s is the worst kind. My chest feels tight, and I breathe slowly through my nose, trying not to gasp for breath.

The next thing I know, he’s in front of me again. He takes my face in his hands and stares me straight in the eyes. Connor has the kind of eyes that haunt you, make you feel like you’re on the spot, and I’ve never felt uncomfortable under his gaze before now. Then again, I’ve never seen just how damn _beautiful_ his eyes are before. I’ve never been this close. Close up like this, they’re breathtaking. Gentle hues of green and gold spun through deep, chocolate brown. They’re gorgeous.

“I could never hate you, Sammy. It’s, uh, quite the opposite really,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing his words with the utmost care. That alone is enough to make me nervous. Connor’s usually pretty careless, the reckless one, so to see him being so careful is strange.

“Con, what d’you-”

“I think I love you.”

My heart stops in my chest. Before I can register what’s happening, I can feel his lips on mine and I don’t know who kissed who, but I don’t even care. His hand is tight on my wrist, but not painfully, and the fingers of his other hand are threading through my hair. I hold on to his t-shirt, pulling him closer. I didn’t know how much I wanted this, wanted _him,_ until right this second when it hit me upside the head and started making me dizzy.

With his hand on my wrist, I know he’s reading everything about me. For the first time, my thoughts and memories are racing through his head. I grab his wrist, right over his barcode, and let his thoughts flood my mind. Things I’d seen a million times and things which were completely new swirled around but, before I can get a good look, everything fades into black. I can’t feel him near me anymore, and it takes me a moment to register that he’s pulled away. As my eyes open properly, I see him standing slightly away from me, his head in his hands.

He saw it, I know he saw it. The worst day of my life - the day it almost ended.

“Connor, please. Let me explain.”

“Why would you do that?” He asks, his voice small and disjointed, and I realise that there are tears in his eyes.

“You saw why,” I say quietly. “But I’m okay now. It’s never going to happen again. I promise.” I mean it. I’ve been ‘okay’ for a while now. I’m hanging on by a thread, but now I have a feeling that he could be the one to pull me back. “Con?”

When he turns around, I barely get a second to look at him before I’m being swept off my feet in a bone-crushing hug.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again.” The forcefulness of his sentence is kind of diminished by the fact he’s mumbling into my neck, but I don’t care. I don’t care that my feet aren’t touching the floor anymore and I don’t care that the air is being squashed out of my lungs because he’s still here.

Despite how much I needed it, how much Connor needed it, the comfort of the hug wears off, and more nerve wracking thoughts creep in.

“What does this mean, now?” I mumble into his shirt, and he holds me tighter, as if I’m going to disappear if he lets me go. I can feel him trembling a little, which I’ve never felt before, and it scares me. But I know what's wrong this time.

People are almost obsessed with the notion of soul mates - a person whose own unique barcode 'completes' your own, because their black fills in the spaces between yours, and vice versa. I’ve never really believed in it myself, finding the notion just a little bit too cliché. Connor, on the other hand, has always believed. I think it was a comfort thing for him, that somehow there was somebody out there who was perfect for him.

I don’t need to see his thoughts to know what’s running through his head as he takes my hand again. He takes a deep breath, lining up the first bar of his code on the edge of mine, and slowly rolls his wrist flush against mine, watching all the time. He didn’t need to, not really, as, when he finally closes his hand around my forearm, a sharp jolt of electricity whizzes up my arm and down my spine.

“I thought it wasn’t…” It wasn’t true; it was just a fairy tale, a story created to give people hope in a bleak world.

“I know. Looks like you were wrong, for once. That doesn’t happen often,” Connor jokes, but with his wrist against mine still I can feel how fast his his heart is racing. It’s so strong that I feel like he could pull away and I’d still be able to feel it against my skin. I’m never going to forget that feeling; the feeling that something that was meant to be had happened, that that racing pulse was always supposed to lie against mine.

“Yeah. I guess I was.”

This time, I kiss him, and my numbers change yet again.

 


End file.
